I am an evil giraffe. But I'm trying, Nick. I'm trying REAL HARD to be the wizard.

(Via Volokh, via Instapundit) Once upon a time there was a Democratic fake-grassroots front group organization called Common Cause. In 2005, Common Cause absolutely, positively, without question was infuriated with any attempt to interfere with the holy practice of judicial filibusters:

Common Cause strongly opposes any effort by Senate leaders to outlaw filibusters of judicial nominees to silence a vigorous debate about the qualifications of these nominees, short-circuiting the Senate’s historic role in the nomination approval process.

“The filibuster shouldn’t be jettisoned simply because it’s inconvenient to the majority party’s goals,” said Common Cause President Chellie Pingree. “That’s abuse of power.”

But something happened in 2006-2008. To wit: the Democrats took control of Congress; and Chellie Pingree, gadfly and scourge of Wall Street, became Congresswoman Chellie Pingree (D, ME-01)… where she promptly acquired a Wall Street boyfriend and started using his private jet as a shuttle service. On the people’s dime, too. As for Common Cause, well: they now hate the very idea of judicial filibusters with the white-hot fury of a billion exploding suns.

Today’s filibuster-happy Senate minority is threatening to cripple our federal judiciary, abusing the Senate’s own rules to delay or block the confirmations of dozens of highly-qualified lawyers and state court judges nominated by President Obama to the federal bench.

“Because of the filibuster and other delaying tactics, fewer than half of the President’s nominees to date have been confirmed,” said Bob Edgar, Common Cause’s president.

Amusingly, Bob Edgar is a former Congressman himself who supposedly got into things like Common Cause in order to clean up the political system: I’m not sure how this can be reconciled with explicitly calling for the lynching of uppity black men (and their wives) – but then, neither did Common Cause – at least, once they got caught. Although the sheer crawling nature of that apology makes one wonder who from Common Cause’s leadership cadre got caught on camera calling for somebody’s death…

Anyway, there is a word that could be used pretty much interchangeably to describe Bob Edgar, Chellie Pingree, and Common Cause in general here. It is not a nice word (although it is technically a job description, not an obscenity). It is a word that would have started a fight not even thirty years ago. Most importantly, it is a word that my mother would not approve of me using.